Data centers are typically equipped with a networking backplane that provides connectivity between various computing devices. The networking backplane includes network switching equipment at various layers to enable a number of clients, such as application servers and end user workstations, to access a number of database servers. The network switching equipment typically includes network devices that forward traffic between the clients and the servers based on information available at the data link layer (Layer 2 of the OSI reference model), such as the MAC layer address in Ethernet, Token Ring, Fibre Channel or other types of packet switched network segments.
The networking backplane, including the network switching equipment, is normally over-provisioned to enable the networking backplane to support peak levels of traffic predicted to occur between the various computing devices. As such, the networking backplane employed in typical data centers often requires greater amounts of power than is usually required for the networking backplane to support the traffic between the servers. In other words, the amount of traffic between the servers is typically much less than the maximum levels that the data center networking backplanes are designed to support. The amount of energy used to power conventional networking backplanes, therefore, is often inefficiently utilized and results in unnecessary costs.